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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29031540">Shades</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeighborhoodCatGang/pseuds/NeighborhoodCatGang'>NeighborhoodCatGang</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Like Real People Do [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hades (Video Game 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ficlet, M/M, nothing really happens, they just see each other for the first time in who knows how long</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:15:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>378</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29031540</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeighborhoodCatGang/pseuds/NeighborhoodCatGang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"The way shades do"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Achilles/Patroclus (Hades Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Like Real People Do [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2129805</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Shades</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Achilles is so very tired. The young prince may dash about the underworld as much as he likes, but for him the trip has been nothing short of grueling. He didn’t have to battle his way through Tartarus or Asphodel, even. He had just materialized at the gates of Elysium and started walking. Each massive sword and shield recedes for him with hardly a thought. The Lethe swishes quietly though random chambers, lapping gently at the soft moss carpeting its banks. And through it all, he carries The Weight. The regret, the pain, the loneliness and, yes, the fear. Fear is for the weak, he knows. And maybe it’s that weakness which makes the weight so hard to bear. But he leans on his spear and stares at the shield gate before him, a tightening in his chest at odds with the weariness in his limbs. He is close - he can feel it. And he hates that he can feel it. Knowing his heart has called for- for </span>
  <em>
    <span>him </span>
  </em>
  <span>so long, so strongly. He wants to let his knees buckle, sink to the soft ground and watch that door for the rest of time. He knows, deep in whatever is left of his soul, that he cannot go any further.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Achilles takes another step.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The glade is small, only a few islands connected by bridges. A massive statue looms over it, the high walls and muffling river lending a terrible intimacy to the atmosphere. A voice floats to his ears, words indistinct. That voice. </span>
  <em>
    <span>His </span>
  </em>
  <span>voice. And yet the bitter melancholy in it is unmistakable. The weight threatens to crush him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Achilles takes another step.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Have you returned so soon, stranger?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fear is for the weak.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Achilles takes another step.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His first glimpse of the man in the glade catches him in the act of rising. A simple, mundane thing. Effortless. Familiar. There is no reason it should steal the breath from his lungs, the heart from his chest. Except that it’s him. Patroclus. The moment spins out like a silk thread between them. Lifetimes, eternities hang accusingly upon it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Achilles.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he is at his lover’s side again, nothing between them but a breath, a whisper, the smallest of smiles. Achilles feels, for the first time, weightless.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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